Em Gessen

In their early phone calls, he seemed fine, happy and excited for his new adventure in America.

But then he began asking her when she was coming to get him.

These conversations got too hard.

Once Priscilla was back in Zimbabwe, she decided, as she said to me, to put O on a shelf.

Well, she worked on advancing her hate convention case and simply getting herself an L from one day to the next.

I'd met Priscilla only a couple of times before all of this started.

Once was in 2018, just a year before Alan left Russia with O. Alan, O, and Priscilla came to visit New York.

Alan was running around with wads of cash, really stacks of cash.

From what I understood, he'd spent a decade and a half living in cash economies, and now he was trying to reestablish himself as a financial citizen of the United States.

He was opening bank accounts and brandishing shiny new debit cards like they were some sort of achievement.

I remember Priscilla looked a little lost, as did O, who never left her side.

It was Priscilla's first time in the U.S.

Back then, I didn't think much of any of this.

Not about Alan's general agitation or his apparent indifference to the way his wife and child spend their time on a family trip while he was busy.

I noticed that O had extreme separation anxiety in relation to Priscilla.

He was just four years old.

Some kids are like that.

Then that kid was torn away from his mother.

Now he was eight, and more than a quarter of his life had passed without Priscilla.

When did you see him for the first time?